With the advancement of technology, communications systems are becoming more and more diverse. For example, communications devices which support various different communications technologies and protocols can now operate in a communications system, e.g., network, and may communicate with each other, e.g., using a direct mode of communication such as peer to peer communication or using an infrastructure mode of communication, e.g., with communication between the devices being achieved with signals being communicated via another device such as a base station.
Generally in peer-to-peer communications, peer devices discover each other and subsequently establish peer-to-peer communications through direct signaling between the devices, without any intervention from a centralized controller. This is sometimes referred to as an infrastructure-less approach. Some devices may support both peer-to-peer communications and infrastructure based communications, e.g., communications via a base station.
Thus, in a single communications network, some communications devices may use peer to peer signaling to directly communicate with one another, while others may communicate in an infrastructure mode of operation, e.g., communicating via a base station.
Individual wireless terminals may decide what mode of operation to operate in, at a given time, e.g., a peer to peer mode or an infrastructure mode of operation, e.g., based on the mode the wireless terminal believes will create an acceptable level of interference to other devices. Unfortunately, an individual wireless terminal may have a limited understanding of its surroundings. Thus a wireless terminal may not fully appreciate the interference effects it may have on one or more devices, which the wireless terminal may or may not be aware of, when making a decision with regard to the mode of operation that should be used at a particular point in time. As a result of the limited information available to wireless terminals, individual devices and/or pairs of devices seeking to communicate may not be able to determine which communications mode of operation, e.g., direct mode or infrastructure mode, is the most suitable mode for communicating and/or which mode of communications is likely to have the biggest impact on overall throughput of devices operating in a geographic area. Thus, it should be appreciated that decisions made by an individual wireless terminal or a pair of wireless terminals may be suboptimal from an overall system perspective. The problem of a wireless terminals limited knowledge of the overall system and potential interference effects can be particularly significant where the wireless terminal is in a region where the wireless terminal's transmission may interfere with communications in multiple cells of which the wireless terminal may have little or limited knowledge in some cases.
From the above, it should be appreciated that individual wireless terminals often lack the ability to see the larger picture in terms of total interference implications from their mode decision. Thus, if wireless terminals are left to make determinations regarding the mode of operation the decision may be suboptimal in overall system performance.
While providing wireless terminals greater information about a network and potential interference implications of their mode selection decisions, factors which affect interference such as the location of mobiles within cells, cell loading, etc. can change frequently making it difficult to distribute such information to large number of devices in a timely manner. Furthermore, communicating significant amounts of interference related information to wireless terminals to facilitate mode decision determinations can consume valuable resources.
In view of the above discussion it should be appreciated that it would be beneficial if methods and/or apparatus could be developed which would facilitate determination of a suitable mode of operation for communications devices such that the mode determination process takes into consideration the effect of a mode of operation on various devices and/or cells without having to provide large amounts of network interference information to wireless terminals on a frequent basis.